Mary Paul and "The Lowell Experiment"

During the Industrial Revolution, Lowell Massachusetts was home to many of the mills used during the time period. Workers were scarce, especially in the beginning of the revolution. Mill owners had to use different methods to hire workers. Eventually, "The Lowell Experiment" was used to hire girls to work the mills without their families. This was house a young woman named Mary Paul was hired. Her time in Lowell was documented  through a series of letters written to her father during her stint at the mills.

Mary lived in Vermont with her Aunt because her mom died when she was young. One day, a recruiter for the Lowell mills showed up offering her a job. She was excited for this opportunity and eagerly wrote to her father, asking for permission to go. She would be able to afford new clothes and her aunt thought it was a good idea as well. Eventually, she got permission from him and made her way to Lowell. Her second letter describes how surprisingly expensive her trip down was and boardinghousing is. She is dismayed by this; she is also homesick. She asks her father to visit and have other people write to her as well. Despite the downsides to Lowell, she still has a positive outlook on the experience: shown in this excerpt from her second letter, "I get along in work have a first rate 
overseer and a very good boarding place." She intend to work for a year or so. Her third letter has a slightly less positive tone. She starts it off by telling her father about several tragedies and accidents that recently occurred at the mill. She also tells him about her daily schedule. It's rigorous and tiring. Mary is beginning to become less and less happy. She starts to realize that the mill isn't the safest place to work. In her fourth letter, Mary worries about her wages saying, "The Agent promises to pay us nearly as much as we should have made but I do not think that he will." She hasn't been paid yet and potential pay cuts are coming. The busy schedule is beginning to tear her down and she's getting sick. However, she likes being able to live with other nice girls that are similar to her. People tell her that she is a hard worker despite how sick she looks. Her fifth letter is written long after the fourth. Mary became so sick that she had to go home to Vermont for six months in order to recover. The mill did not hold her job while she was gone. When she returned, she needed to find a new job at the mill because she couldn't get her old one back. Her new job is harder work for less pay. Another set of wage cut are coming as well. The company says they will go under if they don't cut payments. The schedule continues to wear on Mary and she feels sick again. Her final letter to her father sums up her time in Lowell. She's very disappointed in how it turned out. She's sick again, wages have been cut even lower and, due to missing four days while being sick, she hasn't been payed very much at all.

Mary soon leaves Lowell and goes back to Vermont to live in a Utopian community for a while. Later in her life she marries and lives in Lowell with her husband. Despite what working in the Lowell mills did toner health, mental and physical, she eventually recovered and moved on.

Mary Paul's experiences represent "The Lowell Experiment" as both a success and a failure. The main attraction of "The Lowell Experiment"was, the girls could come work in Lowell, send money home and maintain morality and dignity. They had a "paternal system" at the mills which was an attractive trait for the parents. A strict schedule was kept by those who ran the  mills. They acted as the "father figure" figure for the girls. Rules were to be obeyed and schedules were kept. Mary describes this in her letter saying, "At 5 o'clock in the morning the bell rings for the folks to get up and get breakfast. At half past six it rings for the girls to get up and at seven they are called into the mill. At half past 12 we have dinner are called back again at one and stay till half past seven.,," The "mother figure" is the boardinghouse keeper. She sets the rules for the girls when they are out side of the mills, for example, "we have to go to bed about 10 o'clock." Mary says the girls are nice and well-mannered. All of this shows proof that the factory owners upheld their promise to maintain morality and to have an almost "boarding school" atmosphere. "The Lowell Experiment" was not one-hundred percent successful though. It was supposed to offer an opportunity for the girls in the house to help support their family. The recruiters claimed that the girls would have enough money both send home to their families and to buy themselves nice clothes. However, as Mary explained in her letters, wage cuts began to come faster and faster, leaving girls with very little money to spend on clothes, let alone send back to their families. Many of them couldn't take the vigorous work schedule and fell sick. Mary left the mills for six months due to sickness. Despite these downfalls, "The Lowell Experiment" was not a complete failure. Mary Paul eventually moved on from her difficult experience and Lowell. She later married and lived in Lowell with her husband for the rest of her life.

http://www.uml.edu/tsongas/bringing-history-home/artifacts/set01.htm